


eulogy

by ElectricKettle (DaLaRi)



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Hurt No Comfort, James Dies, M/M, To Be Edited, worst case scenario
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23077744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaLaRi/pseuds/ElectricKettle
Summary: things go badlylondon, ot3, angst
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw, Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Kudos: 9





	eulogy

the lieutenant doesn’t return. it takes thomas *months* to discover why. nassau is a lawless waste, james killed at some point during the fighting at the governor’s residence, no details, no burials, just the few men left alive telling him that the lieutenant refused to run when they did, insisted on going after the men who had taken the governor’s wife and child. it’s worse that it’s his father who tells him, hints at the news with a smugness and a settledness that steals his breath and has him craving the resolve to *do* something, anything, to wipe the smug half-smile off his face. when he gets back to the house he’s trembling, and when miranda finds him she knows at once. peter was supposed to meet with them later that day, but miranda meets him at the door, and tells thomas quietly that he sends his condolences. thomas just trembles and tries not to think, and fails. he stays awake all night in that chair, thinking about how it’s his dream that got james killed, not in london like in all the nightmares he’d had, but on the sands of nassau himself, he had sent james to nassau and he had died there. thomas had killed him as surely as he’d held the blade (blade? or pistol? he’ll never know but the thought of james lost to pistol shot, unable to land fatal retribution of his murderer, hurts him more than he can believe.) he sits, and when one of the servants enters in the early morning and he hears the faint noise, half groggy as he is, he thinks it’s james and he stands in a moment, only to meet averted eyes and feel as though he’s been punched. james isn’t coming back. he goes to miranda’s room.

she isn’t there, and after a brief moment of terror, he remembers how to think, how to _breathe_ , and finds her in the side bedroom that had become his and james’s, curled up on the bed in her shift with the lieutenant’s spare coat in her arms. her hair was wild, she slept in her pins, and he lifts her gently, soothing her, and she curls into him for a moment before her eyes spring open, the same momentary fearful hope resounding into loss that he had experienced the moment before. he feels his lungs seize, and they sob at the same time. miranda throws her arms around him, and they sit together on the bed for a long time, weeping, james’s coat muddled and sandwiched between them.

eventually thomas becomes aware of the dislodged pins in miranda’s hair digging into the side of her face and tugs her so she’s reclining against him, one arm wrapped around her, her fingertips tracing the back of his hand as the other starts searching for pins. a few of them are deeply wedged, but miranda’s hands tighten whenever he makes as if to move, so he manages one handed. it seems almost appropriate, like the first step in mourning is miranda with her hair loose, fingertips tightening imperceptibly as he struggles one handed with a knot. this is what their lives without james should be, he thinks. together, yes, together but less. not less. lessened. irrevocably. by thomas’s hand. the thought snaps him like a matchstick, and he bows, leaving the knot to wrap both arms around miranda’s waist, sob into her hair, her neck. she trails a hand up through his hair, scratching lightly, but the cogs of her brain are turning. he can feel it in the way she shifts against him.

“you’re going to have to tell hennessey,” she says, and thomas’s sob turns to lead in his throat. _fuck_. he is. “ _god_ ,” he manages, voice harsh, and miranda passes her hand through his hair.

“i know, but no one else can. it’s you or the earl.” he flinches bodily at that, and miranda scrapes a hand through his hair, harder, slowly, grounding. he breathes. “yeah,” he manages, and miranda lowers her hand back to her lap, reclines against him. he holds her, feels the pressure of her grief in the conscious measuredness of her breathing, in the subtle pressure of her nails into his hand with each breath. in, _press_ , out _relax._ he squeezes her gently in time with it, and she laughs, a broken, chaotic thing, full of tears. she turns, slings a knee over each of his legs, and buries her face in his chest as she weeps. her hair is a tangled fan agaist her back, and thomas doesn’t know what to do. after a moment, lowly, he hears her say, _hold me_ , so he does. he doesn’t weep, this isn’t the sort of thing that makes him weep, but he passes his hand over her hair and mutters nonsense, soothing, easy, like they’re fifteen again and miranda’s had one of the nightmares where she wakes up not knowing where she is. except it’s not like that at all, because the number of times they’ve found themselves in this position have decreased over the years, and this time they’re here because james, his james, _their_ james, is dead. he wonders if peter will come over today. he thinks about hennessey, feels a sudden urge to dress himself, to pull layers of thick fabric over himself, between him and his bruised bleeding heart, so that no one might see. miranda feels him shift, slightly, turns her face out so her words aren’t muffled by his shirt. her words are shattered glass, all painful edges.

“when are you thinking about going to see him?”

“today, i think. better earlier, before my father makes of this whatever he’s planning.” their nassau proposition is dead. thomas’s career may be following suit, but he has no capacity for concern for that, at least not now. maybe this is what his father planned for this. maybe he knew they were getting close, that the strategic application of thomas’s grief might be enough to hanstring the project. thomas hates that he is right. his father may play games with people’s lives, but thomas has never known the gift of that abstraction. he lives, and in doing so, he bleeds. it’s all he’s ever known. miranda would tell him that there’s no need for him to compare himself to his father, but it’s never been a comparison that thomas has ever invited. it’s one that was thrust upon him. he’s only learned to tolerate the unflattering reflection. miranda digs her nails into his arm.

“hey,” she says. “don’t leave me.” she knows him so well. he makes like james once did and banishes his father from his own house. he kisses the corner of her eye.

“i’m sorry.” she nods against his mouth.

“we should get up.” he opens his arms, and she stands, wobbles, presses a hand to her head. he steadies her.

“water,” he suggests helpfully.

“right,” she says, and exits.

//

hennessey’s face collapses into itself as thomas tells him. there’s a quiet bereft rage in the way he half-commands thomas out of his office. when thomas hesitates, hennessey says sharply, “go! i told james that you two were dangerous, god knows the lad never listened to me, but his blood is on both our hands. now get out!” thomas has never left a place faster in his life. he stands, stock still in the hallway outside hennessey’s office for a long time, frozen, turned to salt, trapped in amber, cast in stone. _hennessey warned james about us._ for a brief feverish moment he wants to turn, to go back, defend james’s position as he no longer has the capability to do, but instead he swallows, feels his throat click, and realizes that weeping on the mezzanine may not necessarily be the best thing to be indulging at the moment.

 _come on, thomas._ he hears james say wryly, fondly, affectionately. _you can experience the full human range of emotions at home._ james had said that to him once when he stopped in the middle of the street after seeing the world’s tiniest dog. james had been laughing at him with his eyes. the use of his name had been a gift. thomas flew down and into the carriage, barely managing to say “home,” before the harshness of his sobbing started. even when they arrive he spends a few more minutes sobbing himself dry, before drying his eyes, fixing his hair, making himself presentable. and it’s good thing he did, because when he gets home peter is there. miranda, hair up once again, is the uncomfortable hostess, but peter is right to have come because apparently their political situation is falling apart around their ears. the earl has left thomas’s coalition to take the fall for the failure of the nassau experiment, and peter’s hard-earned reputation is crashing down about his ears. miranda meets his eyes with worry and relief when they start getting into the political fallout, and vanishes when it becomes clear that this will be, by necessity a long session. thomas has to stop several times when his voice fails him, but peter’s franticness and regard for him has him not mention it, waiting impatiently for thomas to be able to continue. there is very little to be done. in the span of three days thomas and peter go from champions of an unlikely solution to the dreamers who killed the governor of new providence island, and when peter sees that thomas has no capacity to counteract this statement, he scoffs at him, tells him plainly that this is what the earl wanted of him all along, his defeat, his acquiescence. thomas says, simply, “my father always finds a way to get what he wants,” and peter storms out of his house. they never speak to each other again.


End file.
